Search age:

Search in:

Border 'incompetence' to cost $1.67bn more

Gross incompetence in protecting Australia's borders has led the government to ask taxpayers for an extra $1.67 billion, a Liberal senator has told parliament.

Michaelia Cash was speaking during debate on legislation that provides the government with funds to process on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

"They have destroyed Australia's very strong border protection regime and are now continuing to plunder the pockets of (the) Australian public so they can continue to pay for their political ineptitude," she told the chamber on Monday.

"The reality is that if the Labor Party had just left the former Howard government's policies intact we wouldn't be having this debate today," Senator Cash said.

Australian Greens immigration spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said taxpayers' money was being wasted.

"The two bills before us ... continue a regime that is inhumane, that isn't working and is only putting vulnerable refugees in more danger," she said.

Senator Hanson-Young dismissed the government's claims that locking up people indefinitely on Nauru and Manus Island was the only way to stop asylum seekers arriving by boat.

"What a load of bollocks," she said.

"It's failed, deterrents don't work."

The Greens are proposing a 12-month time limit on assessments at Nauru and Manus Island.

A similar amendment was defeated in the lower house.

Labor frontbencher Kate Lundy said a 12-month time limit would provide certainty for people smugglers trying to convince asylum seekers to make the voyage to Australia.

"This amendment undermines completely the recommendations of the expert working panel," she said.

The government would be opposing the Greens amendments, as Labor remained committed to implementing all the recommendations made in the Houston report on asylum seekers.

Liberal senator Ian Macdonald challenged the Greens to recognise that asylum seekers who "jumped the queue" in a bid to speed up their claims were forcing millions of others to wait even longer for their turn.

"Every time someone who is not yet determined to be a refugee jumps the queue... those 10 million wait yet another year for their turn," he said.

Greens leader Christine Milne dismissed the notion of an orderly refugee queue as "a nonsense", adding people in danger would always try and flee to safety.

The bills later passed without amendment after the Greens move for a 12 month time limit was defeated.